Tag Archives: Brandon Flowers

10 For The Playlist – Volume 1

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To preface: I am not a music critic. I don’t have a degree in Musicology, I can’t play any instruments, and frankly I can’t even sing unless I’m drunk in a private Karaoke room or all alone in my car.

But I like music. I’ve come across a lot of tunes that – from what I can tell – never received Top 40 level radio airplay. But I love these songs, and feel lucky to have come across them one way or another. Maybe it was in a movie or TV soundtrack. Maybe it was in a commercial. Maybe in a bar or a store. Or, maybe I just lucked out on Amazon Music or Spotify. At any rate, I’d like to share them with other people. Maybe this will help more people discover these songs, even if the artists may already well-known.

I’m thinking of doing one of these once a month, but that’s more of a notion than a plan. I may do them a little more frequently, or a little less. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll try to limit one song per artist on each list, but I expect there will be many recurring artists as this blog goes along. So, without further adieu, here is my first list of songs.

Starlight – Ingrid Michaelson – It starts like a lullaby, and plays like one for the first couple minutes. Ultimately, though, this is a song about having to be away from the people you love. But that the love you have for them never fades, because it burns a brightly as starlight. This one always gets me a bit misty, and it makes me think of my two boys more than anything else. The song closes with a lovely, cathartic release, which I’ll never not enjoy.

Favorite Lyric – “I can’t promise you the moon / I can’t even promise that I will be home soon / Just leave the light on / Like you do / ‘Cause you know I’m always coming home to you”

Lonely Town – Brandon Flowers – 100% pure glossy ’80’s pop, even though it was released in the 2015. It gives me flashbacks, the good kind, of being a kid growing up in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Sounds like sweet sugar tastes, only with a slight undertone of regret.

Favorite Lyric – “Spinning like the Gravitron when I was just a kid / I always that things would change / But they never did”

Calling It Love – Animotion – The sort of song that “Lonely Town” clearly modeled itself after. Pretty much everyone has heard “Obsession” and “Don’t You Want me” but I honestly thing this song is superior to either of them. It’s simply (or complicatedly) about being in a relationship that has run its course, but you don’t really know how to end it, or even if you honestly want to. This one has the synth backdrop that was everywhere at the time, but also a pretty ripping guitar solo in the middle. And it gives lead singer Astrid Plane the chance to sing like she’s finally releasing everything pent up inside her from the band’s two big hits.

Favorite Lyric – “I’ve been spending my life / Thinking you’re the one / Now I’m holding my lies / And the damage is done”

Wings – Birdy – This one comes in strong, and has no hesitation about rolling out the melodramatic string section at every opportunity. It’s tinged with a bit of longing, but ultimately soars with the power and hope that came effortlessly when you were younger. But, when I fire this one up, I have no trouble getting back to that place again.

Favorite Lyrics – “Oh, damn these walls / In the moment we’re ten feet tall / And how you told me after it all / We’d remember tonight / For the rest of our lives”

Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young – Fire, Inc – One of two songs written for the soundtrack to the cult classic Streets Of Fire by Jim Steinman, who wrote every Meat Loaf song you know. He also wrote “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” for Celine Dion, and “Holding Out For A Hero” for Bonnie Tyler, both of which this song shares more DNA with. I’d honestly love to hear this performed with a full cast in a Broadway show, or even in a community theater. But hey, that’s how I imagine it every time it comes up anyway. Multiple choir sections sing different parts that are sprinkled through until the big finish, when they are combine to form an overlapping mega-choir.

Favorite Lyric – “Let the revels begin / Let the fire be started / We’re dancing for the restless and the broken-hearted”

Sunday – Bloc Party – A prayer for the poor, hungover souls of the world. Okay, that’s part of it, but it’s also about embracing the freedom you have in those morning-afters where you’re still in-love, sober and head-achy as you may be. The percussion drives the song along until the end of the journey, when you are treated to one bad- ass, soaring guitar solo by the underrated Russell Lissack that snaps you out of whatever trance you may have been lulled into.

Favorite Lyric – “You see giant proclamations / Are all very well / But our love / Is louder than words”

Munich – The Fray – These guys are mostly known for “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and “How To Save A Life” but they got a really solid catalogue otherwise. “Munich” captures that feeling when you’re maybe not ready to fall in love, but you’ve found someone who you can’t describe your feelings for with any other word. It then makes the synths sing like a choir of angelic robots telling you to let go, and let yourself fall.

Favorite Lyrics – “Step to the edge / You and I / Then we fall below / Take a breath / Hold my hand / And now you’re not alone”

Love Is Only A Feeling – The Darkness – I have no idea how The Darkness’ only crossover hit was “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” because these guys deliver all the hair metal goodness missing from the past 30 years on every album. “Love Is Only A Feeling” hits those power ballad vibes, not to mention those crazy high notes. They manage to mix the acoustic, mandolin-sounding strings, and wailing electric solos in a way that tells you “Damn right, it’s cheesy. But damn right, you want to dive into that pool full of melted nacho cheese.”

Favorite Lyric – “I had touched, I had tasted, and I truly believed / That the light of my love / Would tear a hole right through each cloud / That scudded by / Just to beam on you and I”

Something Special – Randy Newman – If you’ve seen the classic(?) 1987 rom-com Overboard starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, then you’ve heard this song playing over the end credits. But, in the event that you have heard it, but never sought it out, here it is. Randy Newman writing great little ditties is nothing new, but this one holds a special place for me. Yes, Overboard was on basic cable all the time when I was growing up, so I’m conditioned to respond to most anything involved in it (talk to me about “Can’t Help Falling In Love” sometime). But I’m always on-board for any song that sells the simple joys of a mismatched love affair.

Favorite Lyrics – “It’s alright / Baby, it’s okay / We’re gonna make it / No matter what they say / Sure as the stars shine in the sky above / There is something special about our love”

Sunset – The Midnight – Another new wave throwback that takes me in the way back machine to when I was a kid who’d never been anywhere outside the small suburb where I’d always been. Back then, I felt trapped, as many other kids have as well. And this song sounds like it would have been my manta if it came had been released in 1988 instead of 2016 (though I likely wouldn’t have been able to fully relate to it until the mid-90’s). It starts with a spoken word verse of a girl making an offer that I would have found very hard to decline in 1995.

Favorite Lyric – “They say it’s darkest before the dawn / We’ve been in this town for far too long / They say it’s darkest before the dawn / We’re moving on, we’re moving on, we’re moving on”

The Killers Were The Soundtrack Of My 20’s

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The Killers have a new album out titled “Wonderful Wonderful”, and it’s pretty good.

The title track has a nice riff that sounds a lot like Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain”. “The Man” has an okay rock-funk rhythm to it. While
“Rut” and “Life To Come” both have an inspiring sentimentality. All-in-all, I reccommned giving it a listen and maybe adding a few tracks to your Spotify or Amazon Music playlist.

But this article isn’t really about The Killers’ new album. It’s not even really about their old albums. It’s about the way I experienced those albums.

I was 25 years old in 2004.

I’d gone to college in NYC from 1997-2001, moved home for about a year-and-a-half to save money, and then moved back to the city (well, Astoria, but that’s basically just the upper-upper east side) in 2003.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but I probably did most of my growing up in college and shortly thereafter. I was a bit of a late bloomer and a hardcore non-comformist in high school, who refused to even try listening to some bands that were pretty widely accepted as good.

For example, I spent the first 18 years of my life in New Jersey, but I only had a passing knowledge of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. I thought Tom Petty & The Hearbreakers were pretty decent, but never really owned one of their albums. And I gave the stiff-arm to Billy Joel and The Dave Mathews Band since all the “Cool kids” were into them. I could say similar things about 90’s Alt-Rock acts like the Gin Blossoms and Counting Crows.

Needless to say, I got super into all those bands when I got to college. It even took me that long to discover that The Cure had a lot more good songs than the two they always played on the radio at the time. There were, of course, new acts that caught me attention at this time. Emo-Rock acts like Jimmy Eat World and Pete Yorn hit me right in the soft spot. They never received the same mainstream acclaim as The White Strips or The Strokes, since Garage Rock had made a massive comeback, but I related to them more.

It was out of this feedback-driven soundscape that The Killer arrived with their debut album “Hot Fuss” – the sort of glossed up rock-pop act that sounded as if Springsteen and the Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen had a love child. With my newly-discovered affection for the E-Streeters, and my long-time apppreciation for Van Hagar (a stance I will defend with the David Lee Roth acolytes all day) “Hot Fuss” hit a bullseye in my groove center.

Nearly every song found its way into my personal rotation. Sure, the hit singles “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside” were there. But so was the two-part interrogation/confessional track “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine” and “Midnight Show”. “Smile Like You Mean It”  and “Change Your Mind” both offered sardoncally good advise for a tweny-something making his way through the concrete jungle.  And anytime any of these songs got queued up at 2 AM in the pub (we didn’t really do clubs) my friends and I would happily (and drunkenly) sing along and bounce up and down in what I suppose we considered dancing.

“Sam’s Town” was released in 2006, while radio stations and bars were still playing the hits from “Hot Fuss”. The driving lead guitar on “When You Were Young” always managed to pep me up, even if – at 27 – I wasn’t quite old enough to appreciate the lyrics. “Read My Mind” was a synth-heavy power ballad that reminded me of my own transition from suburbanite to Manhattanite. Outside of those two songs, though, there wasn’t a lot to catch my interest.

2007’s “Sawdust” and 2008’s “Day & Age” both came and went while I was otherwise occupied. Sam could be said for frontman Brandon Flowers’ first solos album “Flamingo”. “Battle Born”, from 2012, had my favorite Killers song since their first album: “Runaways”. That track went all-in on the Springsteen trimmings, and I was happy to catch up on the albums I’d missed. As much I did – and still do – blast “Runaways” in my car, it was just one song and not a whole album full of treats.

I only gave a listen to Flowers’ second solo album, “The Desired Effect”, one day when I was felling nostalgic in 2015. I’m glad I did though, because that one was loaded with the best stuff I’d heard from The Killers’ corner in a long time.

“Dreams Come True” is a morale booster. “Can’t Deny My Love” is a funk-inflected jam. “Between Me And You” hit upon some of the same stresses that I’d been struggling with for a while before I’d managed to put them to bed. And “Lonely Town” referenced the Gravitron by name, so that brought back happy memories of 12 year-old me running through the Kiwanis Carnival that came to town every September flooding back. Seriously, if you haven’t checked this one out, I suggest you queue it up immediately.

My wife and I left Astoria in 2012 and moved into a wonderful house in the burbs. Two years ago our son arrived, and he’s also wonderful. Which brings us back to the new Killers album “Wonderful Wonderful” which, again, is pretty good. If “Hot Fuss” and everything that came out after it helped soundtrack your life, then you should give the new stuff a listen. I might take a deeper dive into my musical tastes at some point, though it’s a pretty deep pool. Until then, I’ll just keep playing the hits.